1. Field of the Invention
An aspect of this disclosure relates to an information processing system, an information processing apparatus, and an authentication method.
2. Description of the Related Art Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2008-182699, for example, discloses a printing system where print jobs received from terminals such as personal computers (PC) are not immediately printed but stored in an information processing apparatus such as a print server, and a logged-in user selects a print job from a list of the stored print jobs and prints the selected print job on an image forming apparatus such as a multifunction peripheral. Such a printing system or method is called a “pull-printing system” or method (see, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2008-182699).
In the related-art pull-printing system as described above, user authentication is normally performed to maintain information security when a user prints a print job stored in an information processing apparatus (e.g., print server) on an image forming apparatus (e.g., multifunction peripheral). For example, a user ID and a password are used to authenticate the user.
In the related-art pull-printing system, however, if the user ID and the password are stolen by a third party, the third party can execute print jobs stored in the image processing apparatus on any image forming apparatus (which is installed, for example, in a company of the third party or a public environment such as a convenience store) using the stolen user ID and password.
Thus, with the related-art pull-printing system, it is difficult to prevent leakage of information to a third party impersonating an authorized user using a stolen user ID and password and therefore it is difficult to maintain security.